Even though Microsoft has been hammered with bad press for its Xbox One console over the past few weeks, it's still managing to beat out the much more favourably viewed PlayStation 4 in pre-orders, according to a new report from Amazon.co.uk.

First there was the fact that Microsoft just loved that you could watch TV through its console, then we learned that publishers could block used games and even that XBLA games wouldn't transfer to the Xbox One. Despite all this though, Microsoft's next-gen system has a 2.3 per cent lead on the PS4. Amazon is also reporting (via CVG) that the pre-orders for the Xbox One are 20 per cent higher than they were in the lead up to the Xbox 360 back in 2005.

Why buy one when you can spend nearly £1,200 on both?

VP of retail at Amazon EU, Xavier Garambois said: “It's not clear yet which of the two will have the edge when they launch later this year – what's certain, though, is that fans are already excited about how the next generation of consoles will change the world of gaming and home entertainment.”

Microsoft and Sony are expected to go head to head in the next few hours at the E3 expo and it seems likely that whoever has the best outing will garner a shed load more pre-orders, even with all the problems. It's going to be fun watching them duke it out, but there's a lot of questionable features with the “next-gen” that should have gamers questioning whether they upgrade their PC instead of laying out money to reserve any hardware from either company.

KitGuru Says: What's going on here? I thought we all hated the idea of the Xbox One perving on us in the living room and being incredibly restrictive. I didn't pre-order one. Did you guys?

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